Chapter 11 Prosocial Behavior
Distress
involves unpleasant emotions such as shock, alarm, worry and upset.
(i) Bystanders influence one another's interpretations and reactions, and
(ii) the presence of others may "reduce the costs associated with nonintervention"
People try to match the amount of help they give to the quantity they received earlier. The norm of reciprocity states that people should
1. Help those who have helped them 2. Not help those who have denied them help for no legit reason.
Latane and Darley, Bystander Intervention, five-step model of this decision-making process. If any of these steps fail, the decision-making process ends and the bystander does not provide assistance. Steps are:
1. emergency 2. notice the event 3. assume responsibility 4. know appropriate form of assistance 5. implement chosen form of assistance
Latane and Darley, Bystander Intervention, Smoke, fallen woman and seizure experiments: Reports declined to
38% among triads (smoke), 40% in dyads (fallen woman) and 31% in tetrads (seizure)
Evaluation apprehension affects steps
4. knowing how to help and 5. deciding to implement help
People in need are less likely to ask for help with they believe they will
not be able to repay the aid.
Latane and Darley, Bystander Intervention, Smoke, fallen woman and seizure experiments: When placed in the 'alone' condition,
75%, 70% and 85% of subjects — respectively — reported the perceived emergency
Bystander effect
As the number of bystanders increases, the likelihood that any one bystander will help a victim decreases
Audience: Others sometimes increase helping by serving as an
Audience. Ex- People tend to give more when their donations will be public rather than private. Knowing this, online fundraising websites often lists contributors. Donating at CVS, they ring the bell. When you hear the bell, people know you donated. You want people to hear the bell.
Helping behavior motivated by self-gratification is called
Egoism
Altruistically motivated helping, fueled by empathy, appears to lead to more sustained giving than helping that is motivated by
Egoism. Study: individuals with other-focused motives were 4x more likely to still be giving support one year later.
Help can also be
Egoistic as the helper can also benefit from helping. Ex: Donating to a charity not because you care about what the charity does, but because you want to feel good by donating.
The intent of ALTRUISM is
Important. Intentions do matter. The helper must intend to benefit the other. Ex- professor ran out of gas, dude gave him $20 and said don't pay me back, but help someone in the future who is in need and pay it forward.
The bystander effect
In emergency situations, potential helpers are influenced by their relationship to other bystanders.
Gender norms: There are differences in the way men and women help which are related to gender role norms and expectations. Men are more likely to help in X and women in situations requiring X
Men- dangerous emergency situations. Women- situations requiring nurturance.
Q: Is apathy to blame for bystander inaction?
No. A crowd of bystanders can make each individual member of the crowd less likely to act.
Costs: Bystanders make calculations about the potential costs of giving help and the costs of
Not giving help. Helpers may be willing to endure higher costs to themselves if the costs to the victim of not receiving help are extremely high. Ex- death.
Katrina researchers had white, black & Latino participants read a fictionalized account of a mother who lost her kid during Katrina. Names manipulated to cue race: Tanesha/Amanda, Tyrell/Joshua. Johnson last name for all. They were asked to describe the mother's emotions and answer questions about volunteering. Participants rated the seven secondary emotions which are
Secondary emotions: grief, sorrow, mourning, anguish, guilt, remorse, resentment. Seven primary emotions: Confusion, pain, distress, fear, panic, anger, rage on 5 point scale. Participants asked if intend to volunteer to help and if already volunteered.
The intent of HELPING is
Unimportant. No requirement that the helper intends to benefit another person.
Normative factors in helping: The social responsibly norm is general norm stating that individuals SHOULD help others who are dependent on them. You must do anything you can to help that person. Must indicates
a norm is operative. Because it's applicable in many situations, the social responsibly norm is really activated.
Prosocial behavior contrasts with
antisocial behavior that is aggressive, violent or destructive.
The empathy-altruism model proposes that
adults can experience two distinct states of emotional arousal while witnessing another's suffering: distress and empathy.
Bystander effect, Evaluation apprehension: Bystanders also realize that other bystanders are
an audience for their own reactions
Personal norms: feelings of moral obligation to perform spepcif actions that stem from
an individual's internalized system of values.
Deservingness: What is important in a helper's decision to provide help is their casual
attribution regarding the origin of need. Origin of need is traced to circumstances beyond one's control or to factors within one's control.
Situational influences: A key influence in helping is the presence of
behavior models- someone else who is helping.
Prosocial behavior
broad category of action considered beneficial to others as having positive social consequences.
Empathy refers to a vicarious experience of emotion. The states of emotion arousal give rise to
different motivations, but not can lead to helping behavior.
Empathy entails emotions such as
compassion, concern, warmth, tenderness towards the other.
Bystander effect, Evaluation apprehension: Bystanders may feel evaluation apprehension, which is
concern about what others expect of them and how others will evaluate their behavior. This sense of apprehension can inhibit helping
There is little doubt that considerations of reward and cost influence decisions to give or withhold help. Every helping act imposes some costs on the helper such as
danger, loss of time, financial costs, effort. The greater the costs, the less likely persons are to help.
The bystander effect, Interpreting the situation: People look to the reactions of others for cues about what is going on and how to react. If others appear calm, the bystander may
decide that nothing special is happening or whatever is happening requires no help. Inaction of others may signal that help is not appropriate.
Alturism is defined as
helping that is intended to provide aid to someone else without expectation of any reward.
The process wherein a bystander does not take action because others share the responsibility for intervening is called
diffusion of responsibility. Step 3 of the decision sequence (assume responsibility)
If the bystander experiences distress at seeing another person suffering, they may be motivated to reduce this
distress (egoism). Egoist because they're experiencing the distress because seeing the suffering the person is experiencing, thus, they may engage in prosocial behavior to reduce the stress within themselves.
Prosocial behavior involve actions such as
donating to charity, intervention in emergencies, cooperation, sharing, volunteering, sacrifice and the like. Relating to or denoting behavior which is positive.
Katrina researcher primary interest was role of emotion in helping. Secondary emotions are benelived to be
experienced by humans (ex: resentment). Receivers consistently associate more uniquely human emotions with in-groups than with outgrips.
Evaluation apprehension "increase bystanders' reluctance to step in and help because they
fear that others will view their intervention as foolish, inappropriate, or wrong
What motivates one person to help another? One view of human nature regards us all as
fundamentally selfish beings- for our own gratification.
Feelings of empathy may cause the bystander to help
help the victim by a desire to reduce other's distress (altruism). Engaging in prosocial behavior to reduce the stress of another person.
Acquaintanceship and liking: we are especially included to help people whom we know and to whom we feel close. Relationships also increase
helping because they involve relatively stronger normative obligations and greater costs if we fail to help. Sense of obligation, reciprocity, sense of obligation, sense of providing, doing the friends/family norms. Violation of that runs a risk.
Threats to self-esteem: Although helping provides relief, it can also
impair a recipient's self-esteem and sense of self-reliance.
Seeking and receiving help: When help is sought and received... the person receiving help may feel
indebted to the helper.
Diffusion of responsibility: When one and only one bystander witnesses an emergency the responsibility to intervene is focused wholly on that
individual.
Threats to self-esteem: Accepting benefits challenges the norm of self-reliance — an expectation that
individuals should take care of themselves and their dependents
Mood: when individuals are in a good mood, they're more likely to help others. Bad moods suppress helping because they
lessen the salience of other's needs. People in a bad mood are concerned about their own problems.
Needs caused by a person's own actions, misdeeds or failings elicit
little desire to help. Deservedness is considered even during emergencies.
There are stronger and weaker versions of the social responsibility norm. The belief that we must help needy strangers or unknown persons is
not as universally accepted.
There are potential costs to helpers for not helping. The evaluation of the costs is important in determining helping behavior. Some argue individuals will generally
not give help unless they think the rewards will outweigh the costs. Ex-if everyone is donating to charity, you don't want to be the one person who doesn't give. That is the cost of not being singled out as the cheap ass.
Bystander effect, Interpreting the situation: [bystanders] inhibit each other from helping. Onlookers unintentionally encourage one another to define the situation as
not problematic. The larger the number of... unruffled bystanders, the stronger their inhibiting influence is on one another
Helping is seen as
originating from some ulterior self-serving consideration.
By matching benefits people maintain equity in their relationships and avoid becoming
overly indebted to others.
Aid in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Cuddy, Rock, Norton. Helping bas- how is prosocial behavior influenced by ungrouping and outgrouping? Finding:
people are more likely to help and in-group member than an outgroup member.
Similarity: We are more likely to help others who are similar to ourselves than to help others who are dissimilar. Much of the effect of similarity is a product of
perceived group membership. People tend to help in-group members more than out-group members.
Katrina results showed that participants inferred similar
primary emotions for in-group and out group members. Participants inferred lower levels of secondary emotions to out group members such as grief, sorrow, mourning, aguish, guilt, remorse.
Outgrouping diminishes
prosocial behavior because it was correlated with reduced intentions to volunteer for Katrina effort.
Social psychologist used three interrelated terms regarding the positive end of social behaviors known as
prosocial behavior, helping and altruism
Models show what kinds of help are possible, convey messages about the stability of helping, and
provide information about the costs and risks of helping.
Helping is a prosocial behavior that has the consequence of
providing some benefit to or improving the well-being of another person.
Bystander intervention, whether and how to intervene in an emergency is a complex decision. The term denotes a
quick response by a person witnessing an emergency to help another who is endangered by events. Ex- Murder of Kitty Genovese, 38 witnesses & no reported the crime.
When reciprocity "is more difficult... the needy... may develop
resentment and negative sentiments toward the helper
Personal norms may stem from
role identies. Ex- "It's the Christian thing to do." Golden rule- treat others how you wish to be treated.
Infra-humanization involves attributing to outgroups less capacity for feeling a full range of emotions. Lower inferences of
secondary emotions about victims reduced intentions to volunteer for Katrina efforts.
Difference between primary and secondary emotions is that
secondary emotions tend to be longer lasting. Guilt can be experienced for years or a lifetime. This is known as infra-humanization
With bystanders, "the responsibility to intervene is
shared, as is the blame, if the victim is not helped. Therefore, a witness is less likely to intervene when others are present.
Bystander effect Processes involved: Definition of the
situation, evaluation apprehension and diffusion of responsibility
If voluntary helped, obligation to reciprocate is
stronger.
The bystander effect, Interpreting the situation: One important element of emergencies is
the ambiguity of the situation. In the heat of the moment, people are often not certain how to respond to unusual situations [which can] delay reactions and stall a decision to act
Latane and Darley, Bystander Intervention, experiments varied the number of bystanders. As the number of bystanders increased,
the likelihood that any one of them would help decreased.
3rd view on prosocial behavior looks at evolutionary perspective. Any genetically determined physical attribute or trait that helps an individual survive will be passed on to
the next generation. Those with prosocial traits become more numerous. This is socio-biology.
Deservedness study: Man at NYC subway, collapsed and stared at ceiling. In one experiment the man carried a cane. Second experiment he had whiskey and smelled like it. Bystanders helped
the seemingly disabled man immediately compared to several minutes for the drunk one.
Potential helpers respond more favorably when a person's need is caused by circumstances beyond
their control. Ex- innocent victims.
Similarity of help provider: We are most likely to ask people who are similar to us for assistance, however, people
who accept aid from helpers similar to themselves... report lower self-esteem, less self-confidence, and more personal threat
Characteristics of the needy that foster helping: Social psychologists also study
who is more likely to be the recipient of generosity whether we know and like them, whether they are similar or different from us, whether we consider them truly deserving of help.
